The Dog in the Car Goes Bark, Bark, Bark…

Oh my aching psyche. It’s Monday of vacation week. I’m scheduled to write my big exam all weekend. Then back to school to prepare for March (a month only to be rivaled by October in teacher-land). I’m trying to focus on getting through this exam, though, so I’m just reading away. Everyone’s pretty accepting of the fact that I am a mommy out-of-commision for the week. Colby’s helping with housework and cooking and Matt’s trying to get home to help out. Bella is getting spayed tomorrow and I am as worried as, well, as worried as a mama who has nothing critical or life-threatening to worry about.

Lucky for me, my darling friend (and frequent partner-in-crime), Angie, agreed to ride along with me on our trip to the vet today. Bella needed to go in for her pre-surgery visit, and I needed an extra adult-sized pair of hands to help out. I called her this morning to make plans. While I sipped my coffee, leaning against the wall so my dead cell phone could plug into the outlet, I told her “Good thing it’s Bella. She rides so much better in the car than Sam”. I should have heard the universe laughing. Not regular laughing but snot-dripping-gut-clenching laughing.

Who? Me?

We spent the entire ride to the vet’s with Bella alternately jumping into Angie’s lap, onto Colby, or trying to climb over the driver’s side headrest onto my lap. She would weasel her little head between the seat belt and my seat so that her head could rest on the window sill (totally know that’s not the real word for it, but it’s all I’ve got). Or she would crawl onto Angie’s lap and stand, full and tall, leaning her snout into the small space where the dash and windshield meet. She dripped drool like a cheap faucet wherever she went.

We made it safely to the veterinary clinic after navigating a closed road and a rogue wood truck. We waited with poor, anxious Bella for an hour before we were seen. It took Bella nearly 30 minutes to let the vet near her because she was just.so.freaked.out.

The ride home went as before. Except this time Angie and I were so carsick that we layered our arms, one on top of the other, between our seats to create a barrier for the dog. We must have looked darling, the two of us nauseated, tired ladies. Our back seat was full of barking dog and lanky boy (eyes closed, headphones clamped tightly over his ears, head bobbing almost imperceptibly). She and I spoke in the code of mothers’ and their friends, a code that I know will only last as long as spelling out curse words. Eventually Colby will say “Mom, you know I can spell, right?” and soon he will be the one speaking in code, and I will be the one trying to decipher what is really going on.

We dropped Angie off, and I used her bathroom as she barfed off her back porch. I tentatively munched on a couple of crackers before taking my wimp stomach back to the car. On the way back to our house Bella jumped square into Colby’s lap. He was laughing and half-crying as I yelled “if she’s squishing your balls push her into the backseat!” and “if the dog is on your sack, push her back!”. I was so tired. The dog was still barking. I had this deep, primal desire to fish around in the backseat to look for a pacifier and stick it in her mouth. But then I remembered that she was a dog and not a baby. I made up a song using the words “balls” and “sack” as many times as I could. By the time we hit Union Street I was convinced that she was singing along with me. I was also happy that I had taken Colby’s itouch away, otherwise he would have been recording it.

Sigh. We’re home. They’re fed. I’m putting on my sweatpants, pouring a hefty glass of red, and heading to bed with a book.